Derelict Buildings
by Saturnine Spiders
Summary: Harry is left to his own devices when the apocalypse hits, and he begins to talk to the animated corpses. And, no, he wasn't broken like the shattered shards of glass and bone littering the streets. Okay, maybe he was nearing that stage, but that's because surviving this madness alone was a bitch. Or the one in which Harry survives the apocalypse because of sheer, dumb luck.
1. Prologue

**Title:** Derelict Buildings

 **A/N:** Muggle AU! because I don't want this to be over in three chapters.

* * *

 **9:28 AM**

The bells continued to ring at random; a thousand cries, more or less distinct, mingled with the bursts of musketry and the roar of artillery from the galleys — well, not really. Perhaps in Harry's head, the store's ceramic floor was covered in blood, but the only thing worthwhile was the thick layer of black and white mould in the corner of the room. The broad katana he had found weeks ago was laying at his feet, his plaid shirt stained with the likes of ichor and fermented beans, and his lips were stiff and numb to the touch — maybe, just _maybe,_ he shouldn't have practised until his fingers bled and skin peeled. It was stupid, really.

But, oh-so- _addicting._

He couldn't practice in his cramped apartment nor could he do _anything_ in that damned room, the katana would rip right through his linen sheets. The walls were as thin as paper, and the floorboards were waterlogged and curling at the edges — vile, really. Hell, he swears on his very _life_ that he saw an earwig scurry beneath his bedside cabinet, and Harry is usually pretty cool with bugs. Just not ones that crawl into your ears and lay eggs, that's a definite no from him in all perspectives. Besides, the complex itself wasn't anything special, anyway.

The derelict buildings were a dilapidated mess, like rows of broken teeth with remnants of shattered glass in rotting wooden frames, mortar and stone crumbling beneath feathered fingers, invasive moss in walls, black and empty doorways, and ghosts of the past — it wasn't the epitome of beauty, sure, but it was better than living in a cardboard box underneath a bridge. But, perhaps that wouldn't be half bad; he could practice without worrying about the neighbour's corpse crashing through his wall and sinking its teeth into his throat.

Though that would be an interesting tale to tell at a bar, if he drank, that is (and more so if bars were even _around_ anymore and whether or not he actually lived to tell the tale). Coffee was enough to subdue him, but he did read an article about how caffeine was the gateway to a crack addiction — an enthymeme if he ever saw one, and he never did study logical fallacies. But, that's beside the point, he was _alone._ The world had gone to shit not even a few months ago, and for once, he could safely say it _wasn't_ his fault — his relatives couldn't blame him anymore, they were dead, their heads served nicely upon a silver platter.

It was lovely, at least, for a little while. He couldn't say he missed them, they were horrible and cruel and just as ugly as the animated corpses, and he only _just_ came to terms with that, but he missed the idea of someone, not just him, being alive. Sure, the corpses were walking, snarling, and ready to tear his flesh from his bones like string cheese, but they weren't human, not anymore. But, it was something, anything to keep a hold of his waning sanity, and maybe it was helping, but he couldn't be sure. He had corpses as friends, for fuck sake.

Well, maybe not friends, but —

That _wasn't_ cool, not cool at all, but he didn't exactly have the time to set an appointment with a therapist — it wasn't as if he could fucking hold the hand of a wilting, green and grey, counsellor and write down his problems word by word as if conducting some sort of self-diagnosis, cause no, he wasn't that delusional. It was just lonely, and he wanted to have one-sided conversations — one-sided because she was smart, and he wasn't — with Hermione and play a solid game of street hockey with Ron, but he couldn't because they were just as dead as his relatives.

He tried, god did he try, to save them, but Harry wasn't fast enough, and he wasn't strong enough, and he just wasn't _good_ enough to do anything but cry and feel the bile rise in his throat as he was forced to watch behind paned glass. The corpses had grinned lewdly at him, almost, as if knowing it was his friends that were being torn from the inside out, like maggots eating away at a rotten slab of meat, slow and torturous and downright heinous, but just he _couldn't_ look away. Hermione had begged as her mousy, brown hair was skinned from her scalp, and Ron had screamed as his chapped lips were ravaged by yellow teeth — a slick, black tongue licking at the gore rolling down his chin like a sickly puppy.

There was nothing left of them but remnants of pink, spongy matter all over the corpses hanging jaws, balanced at the tip of their rotten lips like drool. But, hell, the corpses didn't care, they just kept scrapping their nails against the glass, as if they could taste him through it, but fuck, maybe they could. Harry didn't want to think about that, though, because he _would_ live to see another day, and he did.

Sure, the days leading up to now were shitty and far from ideal, but he was able to scavenge scraps of beans and peaches (far more than what he ate at the Dursleys, honestly) and find himself a working faucet, and somehow, it wasn't all too bad anymore. Hermione always disliked beans, anyway, and Ron's stomach was like a never-ending abyss — they were better off wherever they ended up, anyway. Surely, where they were was an empyrean much brighter than the meat locker he lived in; no, that's not right, he didn't _live._ Harry didn't even know what that felt like anymore, he only survived, and he was barely doing that as it is.

But, yeah, here he was, on top of the world with a katana at his feet and a can of beans at his disposal in the early moon of fluorescent lamps. In a way, it was calming, but in the grave reality of just what his life had become, it was more than terrifying. Harry was a madman because fuck he shouldn't feel proud, but he does — he survived, yet at the same time, he didn't. It wasn't what he wanted, but he can't complain now, can he? Well, maybe he could, but he sure as hell wasn't the type to.

He wasn't about to cry about it, either. He was okay, he supposed.

And, no, he wasn't broken like the shattered shards of glass and bone littering the streets. Okay, maybe he was nearing that stage, but that's because surviving this madness alone was a _bitch._

But, in all actuality, he was just too lazy to move from underneath his blanket of security and find a new area that was inhabited by a little more than just corpses, perhaps he'll wait until the neighbour really _does_ crash through the walls of his apartment.


	2. Somber Streets

**Title:** Derelict Buildings

 **Beta:** lun27

 **A/N:** Someone asked if there will be pairing, and yes, there will be. It's slash, so if you don't particularly care for it, that's fine. Harry's stubborn to admit he likes it too.

* * *

 **2:52 PM**

Harry didn't like the way the little girl's corpse was looking at him through the store's display window, not one bit. Her teeth were chattering like great slabs of mildewed cheese, and her deep-set, sunken eyes were hollow and glazed over as if he was looking through a shield of feral brume, and yet for a short moment, he swore a single tear rolled down her ghostly, bloodstained cheek.

The corpse was sweet enough, really, with pink spaghetti straps cutting into the flesh of her collarbone and beautiful, mangled tuffs of chocolate-coloured tresses settled across her dislocated shoulder blade — she seemed almost friendly as if her skeletal fingers would hold his own close to her chest, close to her blackened heart.

She seemed to smile at him, too, as if something from what she used to be was still in there, trying to reach its way out of the inky chasm of whatever the hell this thing was. It was sickening, really, yet it did wonders to his head. Harry pulled his knees to his chest, watching, waiting, wondering. As if the corpse would just rupture into a shower of snarling flames, tasting the glass with the bud of its cinder tongue. But, she didn't. She just kept moaning and groaning and _fuck,_ he should be used to this by now, but it did nothing but drive him mad. But mad with _what?_

(Harry rested his head against his knee, pulling his katana closer. She was outside, sure, but the entrance was wide open and nothing was stopping her from coming in.)

Desolation, maybe, but that would be the most obvious choice, wouldn't it? The houses outside were paintings, cold in their rendered realism, the road between the dead and the alive was a never-ending expanse of burning black, and yet, here he was with only the sweat on his back and bitter serendipity attached to his hip — and fuck, he wasn't dead, but he almost wished he was.

Almost.

The little girl was by the entrance now, and he watched as she stumbled over the ceramic floor, her wilted, broken body dragging her down with each jerky step. She was small, but that didn't mean anything when it really came down to it. She snarled at him, lifting her arms high above her head, and he tumbled into a bookshelf as she threw them back down, scratching the cold empyrean about him. Before the world had gone to absolute shit, even the sight of a bloody napkin made bile rise from the pits of his stomach and his mind fuzzy, but now? He _wanted_ to see her bleed, have it pour out of her thick, pulsing veins like a lazy river and soak into her pretty little cotton clothing like some garish Halloween dummy. He wanted to know that she was alive.

The sword entered her as if she was nothing but mouldering flesh and glass-bones, piercing a cavity into her skull as chunks of rotting flesh burst into the dwindling day, her body slumping to the porcelain title like a ghoulish puppet whose strings been cut. She was still moving, her gaunt fingers convulsing as if reaching for something to hold, and Harry wanted to reach down and grasp her hand in his and tell her everything was going to be _all right,_ but he didn't because she was nothing but a corpse. A monster, he thought, that was only reserved for his nightmares, something he wished that was still just a figment of his caustic imagination. But he didn't know if he could bear calling a little girl that, whether her corpse was animated or not. She had once been a child, and maybe, she still was.

But, Harry wasn't stupid — sure, next to Hermione he was, but she's _Hermione_ — he knew the dead little girl wasn't sweet and everything nice, but it didn't mean he couldn't imagine she was, right? Hermione would think the same.

(She really wouldn't, if anything, she'd probably be the only one to keep a levelled head in a world gone mad.)

Okay, maybe he _was_ insane.

At least he still had his beans.

* * *

 **5:12 PM**

The afternoon sky was mostly cloudy, like deep steel blue-greys that mirrored the hues of the graffitied highway above. Everything was a muted shade, like a matt photograph in a dimly lit room, and Harry sighed as the sweltering sun beat against the nape of his neck, almost as bright as the first berries on winter holly: unabashedly brilliant, scarlet, hypnotic. Food was becoming something of an anomaly, and he knew he couldn't last on beans and candied peaches forever. He needed meat; he needed protein, he needed something, anything that could help sustain himself for even a few more minutes.

(He could almost hear Hermione chastise him for thinking _beans_ were the perfect replacement for about, well, everything.)

The road laid before him like a tarmac ribbon; albeit, one that had been worn over time, and a white line ran down the centre, relatively unbroken compared to the scarred and bloodied concrete. He let his feet drag behind him, slow and sluggish, and he struggled to keep himself from toppling over and tasting the pavement. But, he mused, it might not taste all too bad, he just needed a little paprika and cumin and — fuck, he should really stop doing that. He should focus. Watch the road. Be mindful of his surroundings. And not fucking imagine eating the damn _concrete!_

Plus, he would have missed the telltale growl of a wild canine up ahead if he had kept his nose glued to soles of his tethered shoes. He had heard it before, no doubt. He'd been down this road too many times to count. But every time he had gone towards it, he found himself swarmed by fleshy figures and bad omens. Okay, maybe he was over exaggerating a little bit on the last one, but he had every right to, okay? That damned mutt was the devil reincarnated. He'd be damned if he didn't follow through and chase it right back down to hell.

His feet pounded the tarmac with all the grace of a sack of wet concrete. The dog was thin, black fur clinging to its skin like a windbreaker in a gale. It was snarling, throwing itself around the feet of a lanky corpse. The corpse didn't seem to care though, it just kept reaching for the dog.

Harry felt his blood run cold. He began to sprint with vigour towards the stumbling corpse, legs heavy and adrenaline coursing through his veins. His temple throbbed with each and every step, and he struggled to lift his sword, swinging it down with everything he had.

His body wanted to follow the path of the sword, but he steeled himself and watched as the edged metal cut through the corpse's shoulder like butter, retching itself deep within its rotting flesh. "Shit," he whispered, eyes widening.

The corpse screeched at him, flinging itself forward, and Harry stumbled, barely managing to stop himself from falling. But Harry was quick enough, and with novice-like apprehension, he pulled the sword free and brought it back down against the base of its skull, the reflection of the scarlet sun dancing warmly within the cool steel. The corpse keeled, groaning as it went, and Harry almost laughed as the dog pounced on it, lacerating the feeble flesh with a few swipes of its claws.

But, then, the dog was leaning forward with its jaw wide open, and Harry barely registered what he was doing before he found himself pinning the dog to the ground. The canine growled lowly as Harry roughly pressed its coarse fur into the dirt, struggling to release itself from his grasp.

"Fuck, don't eat the corpse!" he swore, holding firm as the dog began to twist and turn, its tail slapping him across the face a few times. "Okay, _that_ was mean."

Harry paused for a minute, letting the canine calm down, and watched as its ribcage heaved with every breath, back and forth like an old porch swing. He surveyed the area, eyes darting; they were alone as far as he could tell.

"You're hungry, right?" The dog didn't answer, but he didn't expect it to, anyway. "Well, so am I."

The callous hunger gnawed at his insides, and he felt the dials of his moral compass tremble and struggle to keep virtuous. He felt as if the world was hanging over his shoulders, its mirth laugh encompassing his sinuses, and he felt his grip on the canine's pelt tighten. He could eat the dog and live to see another day. He wouldn't have to stagger and trip over his own feet on the way to his shitty apartment with an empty stomach and a pounding headache. But, what about the dog? He didn't like them to begin with, anyway, so what's the harm?

The handle of his sword was bound with black, scratched leather, the hilt decorated yet understated, and the blade were long and curved, longer than even the canine. It wouldn't hurt, he was sure, it would be like shooting a fish in a barrel, simple and easy.

But the dog was staring at him now, and even though he held the blade even, a perfect, undaunted horizon, Harry felt himself falter. The dog's eyes were brown, and they weren't anything beautiful, but they held _something._ The same way a pot holds layers of deep soil, cradling whatever it held so close no one could see beneath its surface. He didn't like it, but he knew what it was.

"What are you staring at?" He tried to sound threatening, but his voice only quivered, and he was sure he was too. "It's not going to save you, you know. I need to eat, and — and you're my best bet. So, just _stop!"_

Of course, the dog didn't stop, it just kept staring, as if blind to the world and everything around it.

"Come on," he pleaded, but the canine only blinked owlishly. "All you have to do is look away and —" He felt his chest tighten as the dog proceeded to whine, low and quiet and so innocently that —

"Damn it!"

He let the sword drop to his side, dirt billowing around him, and pulled the dog to his chest, feeling the rise and fall of its ribs. "I'm not a murderer," he confessed, and the dog rested its chin against the crook of his neck, comforting him despite not understanding him. He wondered how a creature could be so calm, so naive in a planet such as theirs, but maybe that was the whole game. "I'm just trying to survive, like you."

The canine licked the base of his throat, and he shuddered, deviant to touch — deviant to affection. Maybe, this was what he needed, something to hold close — a sense of security, a flicker of life in a world that was dead.

He liked to think he could make it work. "Okay," he said, simply. "You need a name, yeah?"

Right, he was talking to a dog.

"But, first," he paused, letting his eyes wander between the mutts legs for a second before looking away quickly, staring off into the distance as if the world was anything but monochrome colours. "Could've sworn you'd be a bitch," Harry mused, chuckling briefly as the canine seemed to growl at that, nipping at his ear. "But, really, I'm not good at names. I once named a stray cat, whom I will forever believe was a stern old lady in a past life, McGonagall."

Harry stretched his legs, his movements mechanic and robotic. "I could never really tell if she actually liked me or just tolerated my presence. One day she'd hiss and turn my face into a lattice spreadsheet, and the next she'd be glued to my hip. Though, I'm pretty sure she was plotting my murder."

He laughed, then, as if they'd been friends since before time. "Hermione wouldn't admit it, but I know they were conspiring against me. I could practically feel it every time they were around each other."

The laughter in the air sobered, and he sighed, running his hand down the dog's matted mane. "She would have liked you."

The silence laid on their skin like poison, eerily unnatural, like the crack of dawn devoid of a mockingbird's song. Another beat and Harry was restless without explanation, letting his head hang and sway side-to-side like a rocking horse. "How about Peter? Like the one that wears green tights and flies."

He swore the dog _retched._ "Rude. What about Duck, then?"

The canine didn't even acknowledge him; instead, he was looking past the distant buildings ahead and into nothingness. "Oh, come on! I like that name!" He wasn't whining, he wasn't, yet the dog had the nerve to _sniff_ at him. Two could play at that game.

"Fine, be that way. We can just name you Snuffles and see where that leads us." The dog didn't look amused, but Harry did. "All right, sorry. There was this astrology class Hermione forced me to take, something about wanting me to expand my horizons, whatever the hell that meant. I didn't pay attention much, but there was this star named Sirius. It's the dog star."

On cold winter evenings like these, the skies overhead would be embraced by the fading radiance of a winter sunset, tinges of raspberry red and blackcurrant violet chasing one another. The black dog, head raised and eyes half-lidded, was admiring the fading skies. As if waiting to catch the mere glimpse of a star as it illuminates the Stygian sky for one last sleepless night. Harry stared wistfully at the look in his eyes. "Well, Sirius. I'm Harry."

Sirius seemed to smile at that, and though Harry wouldn't admit it, he found it oddly charming.

At least he wasn't alone anymore.

(He wanted to believe Hermione and Ron were still there, too.)

* * *

 **Two Months Later**

All Harry wanted to do was head back to his shitty apartment and rest his legs, but was that going happen anytime soon?

Probably not.

("Stupid horde," he had said when they were only a few blocks away from home. They would come when everything was going seemingly okay for once.)

The chalky paint fell in fragments, leaving the splintered door a bare tarp, and Harry could only stand still as it whined on amber hinges, closing behind him. Water dripped somewhere, creating a hollow pinking noise that was impossible to ignore. There was a distant groan from beyond the door and hands racked against the walls as if they could smell him through the muddied oak barricade. Fear was gripping at his heart, but he didn't let it show. He couldn't, _wouldn't_ allow it to consume him. He was the type of guy who brought a knife to a gunfight, sure. But his will was something unparalleled, and he wanted to live.

He didn't know where Sirius had gone when the horde first broke out, and honestly, he didn't really want to know, but he was worried. The dog, despite being the literal devil, was something he wanted to understand. Not necessarily like a puzzle, but a hopeless archetype with a head of gold.

God, he was such a sap, sometimes.

Harry had expected the canine to end up as fodder, nothing but a sheep ready for slaughter, an oblation of sorts to the walking dead. But what he got was a companion with a mind as wide as the spanning city.

Harry had thought he hated dogs. He had been _sure_ he hated them.

They were loud and obstructive, mindless in their prowl for sustenance, and they even had the gall to march over his Aunt's precious red asters as if they the very kings of the world, quaking fear over their civilians. Yet, while they were never put to blame for their negligence, he was, because it was always his fault anyway, right?

But, it wasn't, and that's what got to Harry. He had been only five at the time, for fuck sakes. His aunt and uncle never seemed to care, though, and he doubted they ever did. They were a toxic soup for the masses. Something so ingrained within Harry's head he would still taste their monochromic malevolence even if his memory was wiped clean.

 _Or,_ maybe he did still hate dogs, just not that one.

He could live with that, that is, if he lived to see tomorrow. He was pretty inclined to believe was not going to happen though.

The corpses might be sluggish and creepy and as pale as a ghost, but they weren't as dumb as he had initially thought. It wasn't that they were intelligent and able to do the impossible, but something was lurking beneath their corpulent veneer, something dark and sentient that wasn't there to begin with.

Harry liked to think he could decipher their underlying code, see the human in them. But there wasn't anything but a shallow, silver lining between them and the monsters that plagued his sleep. They were real, and everything else was nothing but a fragment of his own invention.

The sound of distant whining brought him back to the real world.

Right, he was about to die.

Prayer was something Harry was unfamiliar with, but he found himself grovelling on his knees anyway, incoherent strings of ill-sorted faith falling from his lips, but he couldn't stop himself. He knew what the corpses could do, knew it well enough that it was already starting to grain away at his wavering lucidity. Harry wanted to close his eyes and wake up from some outlandish coma ten years in the future with the musky scent of tobacco in his hair, grape vintage stained all over his bed sheets, and his supposed wife telling him he suffered from retrograde amnesia.

Sure, he'd be disoriented because, well, he doesn't drink, and he sure as hell doesn't want to be tied down to anyone, but at least he wouldn't be torn apart by fucking _corpses!_ It was something so far out his realm, so far out of his reach, that for a short time, he was living the lie everyone else was telling themselves. That everything was going to be just peachy while it was most certainly not peachy because people were eating fucking _people._ Yet, somehow, everyone seemed to gloss over that fact. Because in the grand scheme of things, it was easier that way.

("Bullshit," Ron had said at that. Harry hadn't listened, of course. He had, in the end, though, when it was much too late.)

Perhaps, the corpses would grow bored of him and wander away. Corpses were impatient creatures, always itching to taste the salt of tears and always itching to smear blood across the walls of buildings like a canvas. It was a constant cycle in a world that no longer rotated.

But he didn't have to fret about that because he would be just fine. He was in here, and they were out there. All he needed to worry about was Sirius, but even then, the dog was crafty. They would get their happy ending.

Yeah, but as it turns out, corpses can now open doors.

 _Fuck._


	3. Death's Seduction

**Title:** Derelict Buildings

 **A/N:** I apologize for the (very) late update, life got in the way, and I wasn't able to update when I would have liked to. Also, this is not beta-ed, so all mistakes are my own. Do tell me your thoughts on the story, I'd love to know what you have to say. Thanks!

* * *

 **8:39 PM**

Sirius ran, his paws kissing the asphalt with each footfall. Ichor matted his fur, his head bobbing loosely from side to side as he scampered limply through the empty streets, tongue panting and eyes heavy in their sockets. Everything around him was silent, but the blood rushing to his ears was screaming their sins like a lullaby. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ He whined, then, low and weak like the miserable creature he was, and stumbled over his own feet, letting his body fall against the tarmac.

 _Coward,_ the ground seemed to cry, pulling at his bloodied pelt with odium as bitter as a pill. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ His pounding temple supplied back, and Sirius floundered vehemently against the harsh pavement, his muscles protesting every twitch and turn. Strips of tattered fur clung to the back of his leg like a ribbon, hanging only by a few threads, his pink flesh exposed and rotten to the air.

Sirius could feel the sinews of time rest against his unkempt pelt, his stomach lurching something warm and delirious. It was amorous, the penchant of unsubstantial death, like the way an old crow would seek out the brigs of pernicious curiosity. Taunting him and alluring him in ways only one in the face of death would believe. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ He wondered, for a brief moment as time slowed, what it would be like to just slip away into the stars and never wake up.

Something inside him veered at the prospect.

Harry was still inside the house. The house with bleak, sepia curtains that hung in dusty, uneven folds, half hanging off the rail in places and only an inch longer than the window itself. They were mean curtains, barely big enough and as thin as a summer smock. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ A house stained with the tendrils of melancholic vintage, so bright, yet, so dull. A house plagued with the ghosts of the distant future.

A house of the dead.

Sirius snarled pitifully, baring his teeth at the bloodied asphalt. He needed to get up. There was a smoulder and tremble of pyrexia building around him like a great serpent; waiting, greedy, hungry.

Sirius couldn't let the masquerade of death tempt him, seduce him like some wanton harlot. Harry was still alive, and he _needed_ him, but all Sirius could do was writhe pathetically and wait to succumb to demiurge.

It just wasn't _fair._ But, what more could a dog do?

The street was skeletal, stripped of its flesh, bare and raw. He could bark and howl until his throat bled, but no one would come — throw physics to the dog, they'd say, I'll have none of it. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ The measly whine he let out to the stars would do him no good, either; he just needed to get up. No one would come to him, but he could go to them.

Shadows coiled against his ebony coat like a second skin, his breath ragged as he struggled to find his footing. His leg dragged behind him as he started down the road, careful to not fall over and face the contemplations of death all over again. He didn't need a repeat of _that_ fiasco. He had enough to last a cradle's grave, maybe even some.

His body jerked horribly as he walked, the pace maladroit and tense, but the empyrean that swallowed him whole was sweet, calm even. It did nothing to ease the blood rushing to his ears, though. He could practically taste the bitter alloy circulating through his pulsing veins, almost as much as he could hear the faint cry of a gun somewhere beyond the emblematic deluge.

Except, there _was_ a gunshot; loud and clear for all the birds to hear.

Sirius could barely understand what he was doing before he found himself running, instincts overriding the dull pain racing through his leg as his body thwarted away any rational thought. There was a tall, tree-like man with arms so long they could touch the earth's core leaning his back against a truck, a cigarette tucked between crooked teeth.

There was a body of a corpse just a few feet away, but that didn't matter.

He was an unsightly man with cheeks as gaunt as they were garish — like the lacquer of a silver flute washed-out and accumulated across his taut flesh, painting him a grey as dreich as ash. An ugly man, but a man. Sirius disregarded the way tired eyes locked with his own, studying him. _(Dead, dead, dead.)_ A sneer edged at the man's lips before he turned back to the corpse.

"Make of it what you will," he said, pushing himself up and making means to leave. Sirius didn't bother to play the role of caution as he stepped into the man's path, paying no mind to the way his fingers flexed over the gun attached to his hip. It was meant as a warning, but that didn't deter Sirius. He refused to let his one chance of finding hope slip through the cracks.

Harry needed him.

And so, Sirius whined, pathetic and so lost.

* * *

 **8:54 PM**

Severus wasn't a good man, that much was clear. So, when a dog, weak and already one with death despite having eyes as bright as the moon, came to him, he wanted to do nothing more than to turn and leave. There was nothing sweet about killing just to _kill_ — he wasn't a good man, sure, but he wasn't completely inhuman, either.

But, the dog was stubborn, stubborn enough to make him want to let that sentiment fall on death's ear. "What is it?" he snarled, but he wasn't particularly angry. Not yet, anyway. The canine just wouldn't _leave._

He knows how it goes, though. Misery was because of the man with his hand behind the trigger. He would have no one else to blame but himself if he were to put a bullet between the dog's eyes. That wouldn't stop him from trying, though.

(The dog's blood would be as supple as a mother's breast, soft, sullen, lolling between his fingers like tendrils of silk. Beautiful, tangible, within his grasp. What was tranquillity without the stillness of death, anyway?)

He doesn't let the answer cloud his judgement. "Leave," he said, softer and as lucid as rime. The bite was still there, in the back of his throat, lurching, wanting, vehement. But, the dog just wouldn't back down, eyes still as sanguine as red wine. Severus wondered if the canine even heard him at all.

(Silence was only temporary, he reminded himself. It would be gone as soon as it came.)

But, then, the dog whined, louder than before, teeth pulling at the cuffs of his jeans, and he was being pulled. "You want me to follow you," he said, but it wasn't a question. The canine wouldn't answer, anyway.

He followed.

(Severus liked to think he did it because he had nothing better to do. The world wouldn't let him have that, though. He was too bitter for a reality as sweet as that.)

* * *

 **9:08 PM**

Lifeless, lethargic, and mournful, Harry had crawled, and stayed, in the comfort of a closet, withering, wilting — ready to give up. He had his back propped up against the door, apprehensive of the way it shuddered beneath addled fingers. He wouldn't hold for long, that much he accepted. He just didn't know if he was ready to let that happen.

(Absently, he touched the pool of cruor at his feet, scours for the pain that was no longer there, and cries. He doesn't notice the arrhythmic _pitter-patter_ descending through the narrow hallways.)

Death was imminent, gingerly draped over the rigid line of his spine, tapping systematically against the collar of his shirt like an old, forgotten friend. Harry supposed it was always there, a phantom of sorts, intangible to everything and nothing, but there.

It made Harry sick, and _fuck;_ he wished it didn't. Ron and Hermione were dead, gone, knitting the seams of their shattered ardour, hastily, clumsily, their lips melded together. They were imperfect, and they fought, but they were one and the same, and they were _his._

Delicate, and meticulous, and as warm as a mother's caress, Harry had loved them. They were incongruous like vinegar was to oil, and they were as audacious as they were kind, but they had worked, all three of them, somehow.

(But, Harry knew how. They were all a little messed up, broken and scattered like the small, wooden blocks of a toy house, golden and as strong as twine.

Together, and only together, were they a house.)

Yet, selfish ventures and desperate endeavours had culminated, taken its toll on Harry's features, marred his youth, ruined him. Gaunt, pale as a lily, he seemed to have worn the masquerade of death, but he was still very much the same man, cheeky and stubborn. Even with corpses at his neck, he was still just that; he was still _Harry._

He could come out on top. "I will survive," Harry opined, letting the words sink in, baring them to the cold, unresponsive closet. He wasn't about to let the tendrils of seduction collar him, pull him on a leash like some sick, twisted pet.

"Not anymore," Harry said, almost selfishly, maybe even a little insane. A welcome respite fell over him, then, and he set his shoulders against the door, too lost within his head to notice the lack of sound, lack of struggle. The door barely moved, it was almost too calm.

"I will survive," he croaked again, carding coarse, knobbly fingers through his damp hair. The words fell from his lips like a mantra, over and over again until his throat bled. "No matter what, I will _survive."_

With that, Harry bowed his head, mustered up what little strength he had to stand up, and opened the door.

And promptly screamed as Sirius bounded from across the room and tackled him right back onto the floor.

(Not that he would ever admit he _screamed_. No one needed to know that.)

* * *

 **9:21 PM**

Harry stared.

In front of him, not even ten feet away, was a man leaning against the door frame; wary, dubious, observing and scrutinising his every breath beneath dark, disparaging eyes. He was holding a cigarette between his teeth, dragging out the last smoke, letting it sit at the bud of his lips, and with calloused thumb and forefinger, crushed the glowing end. He rubbed the butt to a pulp, his long upper lip pulled up into a sneer.

"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise," he drawled dryly, barely above a whisper. Harry froze at the sound, scared that if he blinked the man would disappear and be nothing but a phantom of the mind. He hoped that this wasn't just his head playing tricks on him, that he wasn't delusional.

The man kneeled, playing methodically with the flint wheel on his lighter, and Harry followed the motion, drinking in the familiar flicker of warm, rufescent flames. Sirius was whining from his side, nudging him with his nose as something akin to hysteria ebbed over him, drowning him.

"Too proud to say thank you?" The man clicked his tongue, setting his rucksack between his knees as he pulled out a flask. He sighed as the warm water lolled across his tongue. "Typical."

Harry blanched, scrambling to his feet. "What, no!"

"I didn't —" Harry huffed, falling back to his knees as nausea kicked him upside the head. "I'm just shocked, okay?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "So, you speak."

Harry snorted none too kindly, letting his eyes roll to the back of his head. The miasma of cigarettes still lingered, and the man was just as rancid. Harry didn't like him. "I have a mouth, don't I?"

"Yet you have yet to thank me," he sneered — something Harry was willing to bet was the only expression he could make. _Poor man._

"Can't thank you properly if I don't know your name," Harry quipped, balancing himself between the idea of being an asshole or just tolerating the man. He _really_ didn't like him.

"Of course," the man said, a false smile on his thin, ugly lips. "How rude of me. I am Severus Snape."

"Cool. I guess this is where I say thank you," Harry conceded, tilting his chin to look up at him defiantly. "But your name isn't worth my breath."

"Ungrateful brat!" Severus hissed, rather like a panther would. Sirius barked at the sound, bemused, but it went unnoticed. "It will do you good to not insult me again, boy."

"So, the kitty has claws, then? The name's Harry Potter, by the way." Harry smirked at him, giving him a jaunty salute as he threw his own words back at him. "It will do you good to remember that, _sir."_

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Don't get cheeky with me, Potter."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Harry jested, rolling back on his heels, something akin to amusement in his tone. The banter was _intoxicating._ He hadn't felt this alive in months, hadn't understood why he even bothered. Death was just as sultry.

"I'm sure," Severus deadpanned, pulling himself to his feet. His rucksack hung off one shoulder, hanging precariously as his pale fingers clung to the silver flask in his hand, pressing harshly into the metal. "I assume you'll be fine on your own?"

He was outside the doorway, now, coal eyes as dark as a black cat looming over his kneeled figure. "What do you take me for?" Harry inquired, trying to glare, but only managing a squint. "A damsel in distress?"

"Yes."

"That makes you my knight in shining armour, doesn't it?"

Severus was already halfway down the hall, the flicker of smouldering red following him. "I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon, than be your _anything."_

"Now you hold on a second," Harry sputtered, trying to gather himself as he stumbled around the corner. His katana had found itself connected to his hip, bobbing lightly with each step he took. "Isn't that a bit harsh? I mean, I'm not that bad."

"You have yet to prove otherwise."

Harry shrugged, leaning into Sirius as the dog curled around his ankles. "Touché," he said, staring pointedly at the unmoving corpses leaning against the walls. "Where are you going?"

"Somewhere."

Harry huffed. "Okay, I get it; you're a snarky asshole. No need to rub it in my face."

"You'd like that wouldn't you, Potter?" Harry caught a hint of a smirk as the scarlet flame flashed over the man's face, illuminating pale features.

"Kiss my ass, Snape."

Severus ignored him. "If you're going to follow me, I would incline you to leave the mutt behind."

"The _mutt_ has a name, thank you." Harry scowled, running a hand through his matted hair as beads of sweat accumulated across his forehead. "But, that's not the point. Why the hell do I have to leave Sirius behind?"

"So, you are following me."

Harry heaved a sigh. "Would you just answer the question, please?"

"Reduced to begging already, Potter? I thought better of you."

"You thought nothing, now answer the question."

"My…" Severus trailed off, lips pressed in a thin, seamless frown as he searched for the right word, "acquaintance of sorts wouldn't appreciate having that _thing_ around."

"They keep you around," Harry muttered, albeit a little childishly. "It would be basically the same thing if I bring Sirius. He's just, you know, covered in fur."

Severus stared at him with the same aloofness a stranger would, the tendrils of unfamiliarity flush against his shrouded skin, ensnaring him within its maw. "I am capable of controlling myself, Potter. The mutt, on the other hand, is not. He is a mere puppet, driven purely by instinct."

"Aren't we all?" Harry quipped, something akin to acid on his silver tongue. "The world has gone to shit, mate. We aren't any more human than a pack of hungry wolves."

There was no sound, but it seemed like everything was moving, the brief stutter of damask flames illuminating the dainty hallway, exposing the bloodied, magnolia walls, clumps of paint torn and left to hang like ribbons. They didn't talk as they stalked out of the house, the atmosphere slick with the eyes of solemn words; begging to be heard, begging to be understood.

Darkness wrapped gingerly around their shoulders, hanging off them like a guilty weight as the bite of wind nipped at their exposed flesh. Harry gnawed at the skin on his thumb, a shudder running along the edge of his spine as the metallic tang of blood coated his tongue. There was something _tantalizing_ about the taste, about the way it slid, like molasses, down his throat.

It reminded him that he was still human.

Human enough to bleed and feel pain.

"He's a good dog, sir!" Harry said suddenly, shattering the illusion of still silence. "Sure, I can't promise he won't get out of line, but you can't promise we'll survive past midnight, can you?"

Severus pursed his lips, shifting his attention to the canine. The dog's head was bowed awkwardly, and his tail was low to the ground like a kicked puppy, painting the sidewalk in a veil of black fur.

Severus sighed all too soon. "Don't come crying to me when the mutt decides to ring the dinner bell."

Harry sniggered, turning to face the cold, vacant street. "Eh, no worries. I won't be on the menu."


End file.
